Something so simple...

As a pair of baby sneakers.

Something so ordinary, something that people would see on a daily basis and think nothing of.  Not these baby sneakers, these are sneakers that are a constant reminder of pain and loss, a constant reminder of what was had and will never be.  A reminder of a child that was held in your arms for so long and now is only a memory.  A reminder of what you long for and what you can't have because of issues that you have.

One day we can only hope these sneakers will be worn by Jayne's little brother or sister and hope that she is watching down and smiling and watching over ever step that is made in them.

Honest I haven't been hiding.

It's been a while since I've posted but I have a good reason for it all.  The past 6 weeks have been a whirlwind to say the very least.

It all started with the holidays coming up and just getting ready for Christmas, getting presents bought and things knit and then all hell broke loose.

A couple weeks before Christmas, D's Dad got sick and ended up in the hospital, after tons of tests and lots of discussions we found out the infection that he had in his heart came back.  He talked it out with us and his doctors and they thought that quality of life was the most important thing. So on Christmas Eve the decision was made to stop treatment and send him to Hospice Care.  Christmas Day was a sad and solemn and instead of celebrating we spent the day together as a family without one.

Two days later I took my Mother-in-Law to visit my Father-in-Law and to make sure the facility he was in was all set and they had all the necessary paperwork.  We had a nice day, we went to get coffee and lunch and all was a-ok.  Later that evening was the beginning of the end.

She called us to let us know she wasn't feeling well and she had some odd pains in her side so she was calling the ambulance and going to the hospital herself.  We drove across state and met her at the hospital and couldn't figure out what was going on.  They ran some tests and the doctors were all puzzled and couldn't find the source of her pain and the cause of it.  But while she was in the hospital the doctors and nurses noticed that she started to slur her words so they ran a few more tests did a CT Scan and found that she had a small stroke and over the course of the next few days she had several more as well as a massive one that left her unable to speak and in a comatose state.  From that point it was just a few days and she was gone.

During this time my Father-in-law is still in Hospice care unaware of his wife's condition we thought it best that he didn't know what was going on because we didn't want to put anymore unnecessary stress on him. Over the course of the next 12 days his condition worsened and finally he passed as well.

I think the saddest thing I've ever hear was from my husband when we received word that he Father had passed was he hung up the phone looked at me and said "What do I do know, I'm parentless"?  My heart broke, I know the feeling of losing a parent and trust me it's hard, it hurts it positively sucks.  But loosing both parents 12 days apart is absolutely unthinkable.

With all of this going on I haven't even had a moment to think about myself and our issues with the exception of one thing.  During the middle of all this commotion I had my one year follow up with my Neurosurgeon and found some good news.  The little "critter" is stable, it hasn't grown or moved or done anything and they are confident at this point we can hold off for at least a year before the next follow up.  But what does this mean, it doesn't mean it won't ever grow or I won't need surgery but it does mean the next year of my life I won't have to worry about it.  So this is the good news that I needed to get us through all the crap of the few weeks before.

I'm still hoping for good things in the future and I still waiting for our family but right now things are on hold while we deal with all of events that happened in the last few weeks.

Update from the Land of Endo

Today we had a snow day and D and I trudged our way to New Haven through the ice and the snow for my 6 month follow up with the Endo today and got good news and bad news.  My Cortisol level was 20 Thyroid T3 level was 1.5 the TSH leve was 3 but the FSH and LH levels are nonexistent. So basically the only thing my pit tumor is screwing with is the ovarian function.

While I'm totally thankful for those important numbers being normal I'm basically broken over the fact that the FSH and LH levels suck hardcore especially since the only thing the little critter is screwing with is the thing I want to work the most.

The Difference Between Strength and Courage

The Difference Between Strength and Courage

I found this poem online and sometimes I really need to remind myself that I have the strength and courage to get through this instead of just the tears that flow, I need to be able to stand up and say I'm going to make it through this and come out on the other side a Mom.

It takes strength to be firm,
It takes courage to be gentle.

It takes strength to stand guard,
It takes courage to let down your guard.

It takes strength to conquer,
It takes courage to surrender.

It takes strength to be certain,
It takes courage to have doubt.

It takes strength to fit in,
It takes courage to stand out.

It takes strength to feel a friend’s pain,
It takes courage to feel your own pain.

It takes strength to hide your own pains,
It takes courage to show them.

It takes strength to endure abuse,
It takes courage to stop it.

It takes strength to stand alone,
It takes courage to lean on another.

It takes strength to love,
It takes courage to be loved.

It takes strength to survive,
It takes courage to live.

-Author Unknown

This gives me hope

Even though I struggled with the thought that when we use donor eggs that the child will not be biologically mine, the baby will grow with me for 9 months and I will give birth to him or her.  But after reading this article, I know I will be the biological mother and it doesn't matter that they won't have my eyes or my ears, they will be part of me.

“Perhaps the greatest myth surrounds pregnancy. Many believe the uterus is simply an incubator. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The most important aspect of all pregnancies- including egg donation pregnancies- is that as the fetus grows, every cell in the developing body is built out of the pregnant mother’s body. Tissue from her uterine lining will contribute to the formation of the placenta, which will link her and her child. The fetus will use her body’s protein, then she will replace it. The fetus uses her sugars, calcium, nitrates, and fluids, and she will replace them.

So, if you think of your dream child as your dream house, the genes provide merely a basic blueprint, the biological mother takes care of all the materials and construction, from the foundation right on up to the light fixtures. So, although her husband’s aunt Sara or the donor’s grandfather may have genetically programmed the shape of the new baby’s earlobe, the earlobe itself is the pregnant woman’s “flesh and blood.” That means the earlobe, along with the baby herself, grew from the recipient’s body.

That is why she is the child’s biological mother. That is why this child is her biological child.”

Finally some news.

D and I were talking about the future and how we're going to grow our family (which isn't an odd conversation it's the top of most of our conversations) I'm still not really excited about not being able to give birth to a child or at least have the chance to try.

It actually is one of the hardest things for us because we never really had a chance to "try" and before we move on to adoption we want that chance.

But between finances and outstanding medical bills trying to find a way to find another $15/20k for IVF is out of the question and if we need to use donor eggs we're talking $20/30k.

A while back I was searching trying to figure out a way to try it and thanks to google I was searching and found IVF traditional and with donor eggs done in the Czech Republic pretty inexpensively.
We talked it out and we're going to try give this a try with donor eggs, since we're literally putting all of our eggs in one basket we want to give us the best chance of actually conceiving. It's still going to be a lot of money to save so we talked about some kind fundraiser and maybe a few tag sales to declutter and raise some cash. I've also opened a store for knitting to try to raise some cash.

Shophandmade - Ewenique Knit Designs.



The thing that really brought this on is we talked to the State and the local DCF office is backed up and one of the social workers called to tell me that. She asked me a few questions and we talked for about 20 minutes. It was actually pretty informative but we're still kind of stuck with the fact that we didn't get that chance and while we're still working on the process we want to find a way to give birth to a child.

I know I may sound a little crazy, but IF does that, especially when you can't have the only thing in the world that you want.

#ThrowBackThursday #TBT

Today was a perfect day for #TBT since this Thrusday means so much to me.

So we flashback to five years ago, it was a wonderful day we went to the beach we went out to our favorite seafood shack on the beach and my dearest darling husband asked me that special question that changed our lives forever.  Well he handed me a box and said wanna??  I guess that is the same thing right?

It doesn't really matter how it happened, but it did happen.  We were full of so much hope for the future, we had so many dreams and talked about them over the next few days.  What we wanted  in the future how many kids, where we wanted to live, what we wanted to do.  We decided we wanted a small family since we're both only children and we actually liked being only children we wanted that for our family.

Little did we know what we would encounter over the next five years, there are times I like to think back to the days when we were naive and didn't know any better, we figured we would have that honeymoon baby and that would be it.  Now we are still wanting and waiting, but we've talked so many times about other family building options, so we are moving in the right direction at the moment.  It's not the original path that we thought of way back when, but it is a start to our family of three.

Rough days

You never know what will set them off.  You never know when they will strike but when they do watch out. Today's rough day was brought on by a pregnancy announcement and some solitary confinement so I'm alone with my own thoughts (never a good thing).  This is D's first week working 3rd shift so he went to bed at 2pm so I'm by myself again alone with my thoughts.

So today I'm thinking about why and how our family hasn't grown, and what can be done about that.  Since we know I can't have children the old fashion way and we have no insurance to pay for IVF that means adoption is our only option.

I've talked about adoption before and we do know this is the only option we have at growing our family, but lately I've been struggling with the decision.  Since we don't have the money to adopt through a private agency we thought the Foster/Adopt process through the State would be the way to go.  It is little to no cost out of pocket, we just have to pay for a few things.

But with this process the things that are the hardest for me are all the things you go through, the background checks, the social worker visits, the psychological evaluations, letters of reference and not to mention the millions of forms to be filled out and notarized in triplicate.  Why do we have to go through all of this just go have a child?  There are so many parents that are horrible people, abusive, drug addicts, all in all just bad people.  Why don't they have to jump through hoops to have children?  Why do they get to have a family?  Why do we have to go through the struggle?  Why don't we get to have a family the traditional way?

And the hardest thing for me right at the moment with the whole adoption process though the state is the children come from DCF from homes that the children have been taken from because either the parents are not fit to be parents or they've given up these children because they don't want them.

So why do we get a child that isn't wanted, a child that is basically being thrown away?  Don't we deserve something other than a child that has been discarded?  A child that is damaged and just neglected?  I know these children need love too, but why can't we have what we wanted and not what someone else does not?

This is my biggest struggle and I know I have to find away to get over this because once we have a child we will love it unconditionally.  Just right at the moment I'm having a hard time with this one.

I JUST WANT A FAMILY!!  IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR?

Bitter, Bitchy and Broken

I'm bitter and bitchy because all around me are women who are pregnant and getting pregnant everyday.  They're able to achieve the one thing that I cannot seem to do because I am broken in more ways than one.

The thing that is the hardest for me is knowing once we start the adoption process there are so many things we have to do before we can even think about bringing home a child.

1. We start background checks to make sure we are good people.
2. We go through a 10 week training program to teach us to be good parents
3. We have to have a psychological profile done to make sure we're sane and in have a good relationship.

All things these things need to be done before we can even be considered for child.  So how is possible people who are in horrible marriages and think a child will "fix" it are able to have children?  People who are terrible parents and mistreat and neglect their children are able to have children?  And finally people are so insecure about their own self and their own well being are able to have children?

This is what makes this whole process so difficult for me, we are a happily married loving couple who would do anything to become a family, so why, why do we have to go through this?  Oh yeah because I'm broken, because the little critter in my head does on allow my ovaries to work, because we don't have the money to pay for IVF and we have no infertility coverage.

These are the reasons we are a family of two and trying to become a family of three.  These are the reasons that I cannot give my husband he longs for.  These are the reasons that keep me awake a night, and in tears more times that I would like to admit.  I know I won't always feel this way, but right now it's what controls my thoughts and is the constant in my life.  

Maybe one day it won't.

Holiday woes

The holidays are always hard when you're dealing with IF, but I never thought the 4th of July would be one of those holidays.  The 4th of July is the day to celebrate the birth of America and our own Independence.

But it's also a day that people spend with families and babies and having fun at cookouts and parties.  We had our own little cookout a cookout for two, which really isn't the same.  We went grocery shopping today, we had a nice day but there is still something that is missing, the other part of our family is missing.  Hearing stories of family get together's and seeing pictures are harder than they should be.

When are we going to have our family picnic?  When is our family party?

Infertile Girl Problems

Why are some days are than others?
Why do certain comments hurt more than others?
Why is it on some days complaints about pregnancy and kids and parenting hurt more than others?

Why?  Because IF SUCKS!

It sucks the life out of you.  When you think you can beat it or you think you can over come it some comes up and knocks you right back down.  I can't say this is ever going to change, I can't say I will ever overcome this obstacle.  I can't ever say I will become a mother or I will life my life child free.  I think this is the hardest thing about IF, the uncertainty that it brings to life.  All I know is I'm going to try my hardest to deal with what is in front of me and face head on.

Worth the wait!

Extra tests, horrible exam, double stuck but it was all worth it.

Got the news from the Neurosurgeon and the tumor is STABLE!!  Not bigger, not growing, not moving, but stable.  This is such wonderful, fabulous, awesome news.  It means that it could be at least a year maybe longer or maybe never they'll do surgery again.  Now I go back in November to see what happens a year after surgery.  Let's hope and pray it stays stable.

Another step forward and another step back.

Got a call from the neurosurgeon’s office this morning and apparently when they took the MRI earlier in the month the server went down and they lost all of the images that were on that machine.  So now I get to go back tomorrow for yet another MRI.

I’m so pissed off right now, I hate that fluckin test it sucks more than anything has ever sucked before.  Seriously how do you lose MRIs, I’m sorry the server went down but now I have to screw around to get another one taken.  And believe you me this time I’m leaving with a DVD.

This afternoon was my 6 month follow up with the Endocrinologist, I didn't really know what to expect but I knew I was going to get grilled and I did.  I got to the office which was in the hospital and they took my vitals and brought me to a room.  First the nurse came in and he had the chart up and made sure all the info the doctor had was correct.    Next one of the fellows in the practice came in to ask me just about any and every question under the sun.  She examined me, listened to my heart, back and belly.  Felt my thyroid and everything looked good.

Finally after about an hour I got to me "my" doctor and I really liked him.  It was nice, and he explained a lot and went over a bunch of things.  He did give me the news we already knew, I have a non-functioning pituitary gland. They looked at the last scan (back in February) and wanted to check out this one...but oh wait Yale lost it.

The little bit of good news if I do get pregnant I do have enough of the PIT left to sustain me though pregnancy.  They will follow me closely and watch all my levels but they think it'll be ok.  The endo also told me that if the tumor does grow they will wait until after we have decided to stop pursuing pregnancy all together or until we have all the children that we want.  Before they do another surgery or radiation treatment.  He thinks I'm a perfect candidate for radiation surgery because of the location of the tumor.  However it will destroy more of the PIT and make it function even less than it already is now (which I don't get).

Now I have to get more bloodwork and a few more tests but I don't need to go back until November/December so now we wait.  I really hope somehow, someway we can find a way that during my next appointment I'm pregnant.  I know I'm delusional but I'm not giving up hope that something might happen.

I can't give up hope, it's the only thing I have.

Another Journey and a history lesson

It all started back in 1991, I was 18 years old fresh out of high school and I decided that I wanted to go to travel school and see the world.  So that's exactly what I did.  I went on cruises and vacations, saw the Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean.  I had fun and I loved what I was doing, I was young and had not a care in the world.

Fast forward 18 years, I was working for a large corporation planning corporate travel for many different companies when I get the call to the office where I was given  a pretty blue file and a pretty pink slip.  My days of travel planning and organizing were over or so I thought they were.

Fast forward again to a few weeks ago when D and I were talking about missing the few little perks I got as being a travel agent. They weren't huge or giant discounts, but I saw what was on sale and where the deals were so we booked things and took trips.  After several long conversations and soul searching I decided it was time to go back through my hat in the ring and do something I truly loved.  

I found some old contacts did a little research and found a job that I was able to work from home at my own time and at my own pace. So Little Cottage Travel was born. I created a Facebook page and a website for my new business, both are a work in progress at the moment and still need a little help but it's a start.  I'm excited, scared, nervous to embark on this new journey and in the long run it will be worth the blood sweat and tears that I know are forthcoming.

Please feel free to like or share or ask questions or who knows even book the vacation of your dreams!

Welcome to home rentership

So we're all moved in, it took us 3 weeks and 3 days to pack up and move but we did it and we couldn't be happier.

I can't say the unpacking is going as well, but we're getting there.  The kitchen, living room, guest bedroom are done.  The office and master bedroom still need some work.  We've got about 10 boxes that still need to find a home but it's getting there.

Today the Goal was to get the dryer hooked up, unfortunately we had to change the power cord which required a trip to home depot to get a 4 prong cord to fit in the outlet we have in the house.  Thanks to Google I installed the new cord plugged it in and it worked. Yay success. Next we hooked up the washer and the cold water hose broke and water went all over. Looks like another trip to home depot is on the list of things to do tomorrow.

It may not be the exact outcome that we wanted but it was something we did in our home.  I can't tell you how happy we are to be here and how wonderful the last week and 1/2 has been.  Next weekend is going to be yard work weekend.  We need to find a lawnmower and I want to buy some plants and start a small veggie garden.  But they say we shouldn't do it for a week or so because we have some chance for frost still.  It actually dropped down in the 30s last night.

I can't wait to get more things done and the house decorated exactly the way we want it.  I would love to have a family in this house and somehow I will find a way for this to happen

Happy Blogiversary to me

I can't believe I've been writing for a year.  I can't believe all that has happened in the last 365 days.  The good, the bad and the in between.  The happy, the sad and the bitter and broken.  Never give up, never surrender.  I will be a mother one day some how!

A little good news.

Our house hunt has been a long an arduous one, we've had bad luck after bad luck.  Lost houses due to inspections, offers, and bidding wars.

We decided to wait for a little bit and actually give up on the hunt and decided to rent for a while to get out of the apartment that we're living in now. We got lucky and found the perfect house, it's adorable a cute little country cottage in the middle of the sticks with almost 3 acres of land.

We're in love and we're moving in to the house in two short weeks.  Packing is going to suck, but it will be worth it in the end.

It's official

I talked to our HR department and found out even with the CT State Fertility Insurance Mandate we are still not covered for treatment.

I don't get it...it's MANDATED!!  How do you say no, but since they are "self-insured"  they don't have to follow the mandate.  So basically unless D gets a job in the next 3 months with day one coverage and fertility treatment a biological child is not in our future.  As I've said before with the debt from surgery there is no way to afford IVF we just don't have $11k.

I think the hardest thing is knowing that I won't be able to look my child in the eyes and see a part of me, see a part of my husband.  Right now without the money for treatment our only option is state adoption which could take years and years.  I know if we do adopt I will love that child more than anything else but now it's just so hard to mourn the loss of a child that never existed or will exist.

Broken. In more ways than one.

My RE's office call me today to tell me that my insurance doesn't cover any fertility treatments. Which I really don't get because my state has a mandate that makes fertility coverage mandatory for anyone in the state.  The only requirements that the state has is the company has to have more than 50 people (my company has 750) or if the company has any sort of religious background, yeah not so much.

When I talked to the office to ask about options they told me I could do the self pay option, which really isn't an option.  The cost is $750 per monitoring appointment and $650 for the IUI, the doctor told me that I would need to come every other day for about 2 weeks to check on progress, it may be less or more depending on how I respond to the drugs. The cost of the drugs are $80.00 a day again for about 2 weeks depending on how I respond, but she thought two weeks for sure.

So all together were looking at approx $13k for something that may or may not work and I’m not ok with those odds. The only reason we were going to try this before jumping to IVF was I wanted to see if I would respond, it was basically a throw away cycle and I wasn’t ready to give up and jump right to IVF.  I really wish we could afford all of this but right now I'm already about $30k in debt from brain surgery, so I don't think I can afford this on top of that, actually I know I can't afford this.

Hindsight now I should have just froze my eggs before the surgery that would have been paid for by the insurance, but again at that point I wasn’t ready to give up hope that I could be lucky enough to have a baby on my own.

I think the hardest thing about it, this is something that has been consuming my every thought for the past 3 years, with tests and doctors visits and so on and so on, poked and prodded all for the sake of something that will never happen now.  Something we both want so much we talk about every day we dreamed and planned picked out names and how we would raise a child.

I spent my day at work sitting at my desk in tears mourning the loss of a biological child that never will be.  FU IF!!

Bitter and Baren. IF SUCKS!!

Today I spent two hours of my life I’m never getting back….and $50

It was possibly the worst doctor’s appointment every. I went in to discuss some options, was in the waiting room for 1/2 hour and then she ran though about 20 scenarios what we were going to do and try and see if it works. We decided to try an IUI cycle with injectible meds.  The RE isn't sure what the meds are going to do, she wants to start me on a low dose and see what happens.  She said expect to stim for "a while" typically I think people stim for 5-7 days and she was talking about starting the low does for 7-10 days and then up the dose.  Since my hormone levels are so screwed up she has no clue what is going to happen or how the stims are going to work.

While this is all happening D is sitting there basically dumbfounded and I felt so bad for him because the RE didn’t even really talk to him, she kinda talked around him. He’s already not feeling the best and this may have pushed him over the edge.  Plus the fact he’s dealing with the same stress about having a child that I am, anytime he sees another picture or announcement it hurts him just as much as it hurts me. And not to mention he’s not really happy about using a little modern medicine he wants it to happen the old fashion way. Which of course with my issues can’t happen and that makes me feel like crap because I can’t give him what he wants.

Tonight when I came home from work it didn't get any better and the fact that I actually had time to think and not just focus on work the tears just flowed.  D and I talked everything out and we had a good long discussion and fought a little and cried together.  But I think we managed to come to a mutual decision.

I really hate the feelings that come with IF. I still feel like it's my fault and that my husband still resents me, but this is just my inner demons coming out.